MY BROTHER IS GONE!
NEVER AGAIN TO COME!!
One of the unspoken perils of living in the diaspora is the abiding fear of an always hanging possibility of that dreaded phone call from home, announcing the sudden death of a dear one or such other personal tragedies that may loom far larger than the ‘usual’ pleas for a financial ‘bail out’.
Early this morning, just as I was preparing to step out, the house phone burst into life, wailing with that incessant unforgiving noise that is always hard to ignore. I yanked the receiver off the hook and soon felt my heart in my palms.
The news from the other end literally froze me: it was the very sad news about the death of a very dear brother of mine: Emmanuel Mohamed Kabineh Bengeh!
Emmanuel was a colleague, he was a comrade, and my confidante.And that is not saying anything!
Almost six sad hours after THAT CALL, the initial shudder of the shock-waves that would stay with me forever has still not found any definite exit to ease out of my being.
So I have decided to piece my thoughts together not only to inform friends and relatives about this sad event but also to initiate some form of healing process for myself. So I want to apologize for taking you on what may well turn out to be a rambling therapeutic journey evoked by the sheer rawness of emotions.
I met ARIO SAMBA (his favored nickname grabbed from one of our Boarding Home sneak-outs to watch SHOLAY- among many other films- at the CAPITOL CINEMA in Kenema) at the KAY SCHOOL and we bond like a bone in a body.
We went everywhere and did everything together: me and my brother! From Bombohun to Kpangbama; from The Bo School to Mount Aureol: we partied and studied; we worried and quarreled, together. Essentially, we went through our teenage years building and cementing our friendship with every trial and every triumph that life threw at us.
Now my brother, my great friend, has bowed out from this mundane stage which feels that much darker without the reassuring light of his familiar presence- a presence and a shine never diminished by distance or time!
Oh, what a terrible tease this earthly life of ours can be! It fills you up with years of beautiful memories, only to drain you out in one sad painful scoop!
Yet would I hold my tears in conscious check. Yet would I find the courage to still spark a smile through the deepest holes in my heart.
Opening the floodgates of my tears would make me feel irreverently greedy, and I would not dare to soil Emmanuel’s solid memories with the watery ingratitude of my own selfishness!
For didn’t God do his best for us by privileging us with so many blissful years to make each other laugh and cry? I hope we tried!
For together we clambered on the top of mango trees in our Kay School campus to deny the protesting bats a considerable portion of their nightly bite. How often did we not sneak out of our dorms to go ‘searching’ for girls by that then popular HRSS fence side? Were we scared in our adventures? Of course. Anyone who knew our Principal,“Gody Mitchell” would readily tell you that we were risking anything from three-monthly suspensions to outright expulsion from school. But in our youthful determination not to be ‘chained’ by rules, we had mastered certain survival techniques including memorizing the sound of the engine of “Gody’s” car, from afar! I can still fish out the hum of EK-2872 from a million cars in tow! For that is how we “played” out but still stayed in school!
Did the Bo School sixth form with its “Kaeju Belleh’s double-rattan-therapy” ‘tame’ us? Nooo, I don’t think so. How many countless times didn’t we squirrel our ways through the Bo School fence unto the sweaty dance floors of ‘UP TOWN DISCO’? Oh, how we laughed and bumped into one another, thinking that THIS SHOW, THIS LIFE, will never end!
And Yes! we often went to ‘RIO’ cinema and sat through the lengthy films, giggling with our childhood girlfriends, caring not whether the “Old Pa Kaiju” and his “Belleh” awaits us on our exit, with his little ‘Black Book’ to load up our names for an uncomfortable session with him the next morning!
And at Fourah Bay College….Oh Lord, who could put a price on the time we had there? From the side-shattering jokes in those precariously hanging BLOCK M rooms, to our Milton Margai escapades and the Njala trips. We did have a ball: our ball!
So long a story bro, yet so sweet the memory that now sustains me in our parting.
KPANGBAMA! The name keeps hitting me and clouding out the pain. Yes, Kpangbama! That beauty of a village where we used to paddle on the Kpangba River and cook the fish we caught. Sun bathing on the sandy shores, without a care in the world!
Brother, I Just recalled something somehow funny, though it was not so at the time. I am referring to the occasion when we crashed into a Minister’s Mercedes car in Conakry and (instead of being bundled off to some dark police cell, for “careless driving” or “endangering the life of a State Official”), we actually ended up securing tickets for a soccer match at the national stadium. I will refrain from going through the funny conversations that landed us our luck. But that did end up as some happy fun time; didn’t it?
Brother Emmanuel was my able ‘middle man’ for negotiations over the heart of what was to become the first girlfriend of a shy school boy. But I grew up fast- didn’t I bro! And was I not there to run with you, in step, when the irate father of one of your beautiful “Bekeh’s” chased us into the darkest pothole street I have ever sprinted in?
From daring school boys to militant students; from vocal school teachers to responsible parents, our closeness had been without a gap.
Brother Bengeh, you who made me laugh so long and loud; do you now want to make me cry today? And for every other day when I think of you? “We were not made for tears, bro!” Yes, I just stole your line to make my point! How about that, bro?
So instead of crying tears would have to thank our mighty Maker, a thousand times, for allowing me to share such great times with you! The show was intense, and the ride sometimes bumpy; but never was it dull!
Brother, I could have made you laugh louder. I could have really cracked up your ribs, but how was I to know that such a time would come when my laughter would count no more to you?
Brother, we fought together so many times on the universal platform of “fairness and Justice” for all. We may not have won half our battles (our world is still ruled by unrepentant rogues!) but at least we tried (think of the SLTU Emmanuel Fatorma and smile- for I know you can- at the swiftness and sweetness of our victory there). I promise you that the fight goes on, brother: ALUTA CONTINUA!!
You were a formidable fighter. And now, you have helped to demolish my sometimes fear of Death. For I now know that when my light shall fade away, I will proceed with an added smile, knowing that that “welcome Party” is going to be organised by YOU.
But I have to warn you here about my welcome party: “STRICTLY NO ALCOHOL IN THE HALL, PLEASE!” Not even a half-filled cane of SALINA POYO. And please don’t forget to pass that message (“instruction”) on to Denis (Swaray) ‘the intellectual’ comrade who was cut down so brutally in the rebel madness so many years before your exit from here.
RIP Od Boy!! How I wish we could have lived here forever; but at least you have achieved that “forever” in the immortality that awaits us all at our next rendezvous!!!
Till we meet again on the other side of the shore, I have to say REST IN PERFECT PEACE!! For you truly deserve it!!!!
(posted on Facebook 29/12/13)
abdulai braima blogs 